


A Haven for the Weary Soul

by Aibhilin



Series: Aibhilin's One Piece Flashfic/Drabble/Oneshot Section [11]
Category: One Piece
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Cafe AU, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, beginning of Law/Luffy if you squint, this is kinda sad?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-02
Updated: 2020-08-02
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:56:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25669315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aibhilin/pseuds/Aibhilin
Summary: It had been a mistake to head there, he felt.But try as he might, he couldn’t bring his feet to move away from the direction they were pointed in.He could barely make them come to a stop, a few dozens, tenths of meters before his destination.Transfixed, his gaze rested on what he’d come to know as a sanctuary of blessed homeliness.The last time he’d come here, it had looked different, it hadbeendifferent.Written for theSet Sail! One Piece Mid Year Exchange 2020.
Relationships: Donquixote "Corazon" Rosinante & Trafalgar D. Water Law, Monkey D. Luffy & Trafalgar D. Water Law
Series: Aibhilin's One Piece Flashfic/Drabble/Oneshot Section [11]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1951219
Comments: 6
Kudos: 19
Collections: Set Sail One Piece Mid Year Exchange 2020





	A Haven for the Weary Soul

**Author's Note:**

  * For [wbtrashking](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wbtrashking/gifts).



> Hello there!
> 
> I participated in the [Set Sail! One Piece Mid Year Exchange](https://setsailexchange.tumblr.com) on Tumblr - and this piece is what came of it on my part. ;)  
> This is my gift for quillifer - for this piece, I took the prompts of "Law, Luffy, Rel: Law/Luffy, drama, angst and coffee shop" and went with it XD hope you like the end result!
> 
> Enjoy~!

_"Even bad coffee is better than no coffee at all."_

David Lynch

* * *

It had been a mistake to head there, he felt.

But try as he might, he couldn’t bring his feet to move away from the direction they were pointed in.

He could barely make them come to a stop, a few dozens, tenths of meters before his destination.

Transfixed, his gaze rested on what he’d come to know as a sanctuary of blessed homeliness.

The last time he’d come here, it had looked different, it had _been_ different.

Irritated at his own train of thoughts, he scoffed.

Of course it had been different!

It had had a different owner back then, after all.

Gone were the tiny hearts, gone were the feathers, ~~gone was the person he’d spent time with-~~

Forcing himself to think of another topic, one that wasn’t as morose, preferably, he breathed in deeply. Held his breath for Three. Long. Seconds. And let it out again.

For a few minutes, all he could bring himself to do was breathe.

Then his brain decided to take them around towards the most familiar as well as despised topic of the day that he apparently couldn’t make himself stay clear of for a few fricking hours and he took another step in response, before halting his body, once more, undecided still.

The last time it had been this bad, he’d discovered the café for the first time.

It felt as if it had only been yesterday, when he’d ambled along this road, taken these steps and ventured inside, hoping to finally find a café (bar) where he could rest in peace. Where the bartender wouldn’t throw him out for having a dangerous air about him – thinking him a gang member, most probably, or something the like – and trying to enjoy his drink in a corner of the bar from where he supposedly kept throwing “suspicious glances at the other guests”.

Law didn’t remember how many cafés or bars he’d been to before he’d stumbled upon the Hearts Bar. Fondly, he recalled the moments when Corazon, the bar owner, had made him the bar’s Special, the Quiet Quiet Drink, to which he’d always rolled his eyes but taken it, nonetheless. Somehow, that drink – and a quiet corner to accompany it – had always been exactly what he’d needed. And it never tasted the same, too.

Corazon – or Cora-san, as he’d taken to nicknaming the huge oaf of a man in jest back then, – had never minded him coming there.

The first time it had been because he hadn’t known where to turn to. He’d never talked about it, never said it out loud, not to Cora-san, at least, although he suspected the man might know something about his situation. And he should have been able to keep it together much, much better, he hadn’t been twelve when the accident had happened, after all, no, _~~that had been his sister’s age when she'd-~~_

His stomach churned unpleasantly.

Great.

Those kinds of thoughts were going to keep him company for a while, huh?

The now-cheerful, brightly coloured exterior almost made him turn away from the café in disgust.

Yet, he was morbidly curious. What exactly had the new owners changed? What had stayed the same? _~~Were there still hearts engraved in impossible places because Cora-san couldn’t help but tease his mysterious older brother who would always start to throw a tantrum whenever he found one?~~_

“Thousand Sunny” the sign above the entrance read.

Rummaging a little, he found the knowledge he was seeking within the safe confines of his head: the café (bar) had been taken over by a group called ASL who’d started up a bit of a café chain in the eastern part of the city, albeit he didn’t know anything more than that. Understandably, he’d taken to avoiding coming here in the time after Cora-san had told him he’d leave the city with regret written all over his stupid, painted face.

No.

Oh, no.

Law was an adult – _and had been one for a couple of years by that point!_ – and he needed no babying from anybody!

Not even from a well-meaning clumsy big fool of a bartender who prepared the one drink he used to order ~~just right and-~~

A shuddering breath intake later, he slowly, cautiously, ventured closer to the offending brightness of the café’s walls. Not even the door was left out of the vandalism, he noticed with a frown on his face, eyebrows drawn together tightly. Everything in his body rebelled against entering the café.

He took another breath, squared his shoulders and opened the door. A bell jingled cheerily above the door, announcing his entrance to everybody who wasn’t deaf within a radius of about a hundred meters, its noise grating on his nerves already.

The black-haired man couldn’t suppress the wince and the grimace that stole over his face at the view that greeted him. Gone was the murkish brown bar with its steely grey barstools and the comfortable brown leather seats, gone were the cosy corner seats with the alcoves bordering them, gone were the toned-down liquor shelves.

In their stead, the bar had been painted over with… were those flower wallpapers? A grotesque light greenish-colourful décor met his eyes, taking the spot at the forefront of the colour-parade. Sunflowers were arranged in vases along the window-side of the bar. He hadn’t even known there were windows present, here.

Brown leather seats were still in use, however now colourful cushions and furry… Plushies? Did they add plushies? To a bar’s interior?

He froze in outraged confusion.

Who was responsible for this travesty of a café?

No longer able to keep his feet glued to the spot by the door, he began wandering around a little bit. Wasn’t there a waiter to be found anywhere, here?

Noise drew his attention towards the far right corner and he dared to approach.

When he was about five meters away, a bent-over body righted itself in front of him, revealing a lady dressed to the nines, wearing a long ballroom dress that glittered with every move.

What the-?

She sighed, before she noticed him standing there. “Ah, a customer! Simply choose a seat, we’ll be with you shortly!” the orange-haired woman chirped commandingly, making him blink in bemusement.

Alright then. That had to be one of the new people in charge, he mused to himself.

But the café… she couldn’t seriously think he’d be able to find a place he’d like, here, in all this bright, cheery nonsense of a café room?

Well… One saving grace were what his gaze landed upon next: buttony leather seats were located alongside a rather shadowy, hidden corner of the café (bar). The corner was resting on a bit of a platform, from which one ought to have a good view over the rest of the café… Mechanically, his feet brought him there.

Sitting down, he was proven correct in his assumption. Truly, those were at the perfect height to overlook everything within the café, but still shadowy enough as to remain unobtrusive in one’s observance of the other guests.

People-watching stayed one of his hobbies, after all. No sense in not indulging in it if one had the chance…

And the seat wasn’t bad, either. The leathery surface of the chair was smooth, the angle at which it was inclined comfortable enough not to be sleep-inducing and the armrests at a good height.

This might-

It just might-

Well, okay, he might-

Giving it a chance, this café (bar) might just become one he could get used to.

“Hello!” a chirpy voice startled him out of his thoughts. It gave him no chance to answer, though, going on to loudly announce, “Welcome to the Thousand Sunny! We’ve got lots to choose from! We’ve got coffee, we’ve got meat, we’ve got tea, we’ve got meat, we’ve got… uh…” the boy wearing a waiter’s uniform’s speech petered out. Unimpressed, Law raised an eyebrow at the performance. That was what the new personnel was like?

This café (bar) would go down under in no time at all.

Feeling a headache coming on, he managed to keep himself from snarking back at the boy waiter when he was asked, “Anyway, what would you like?”

Instead, he simply ordered a cappuccino “with two packets of sugar”, as had become his habit from visits to other cafés in between. He was reasonably sure that his order wouldn’t go missing, seeing as he was the only guest currently within the café, nor did it leave much room for them to misinterpret it.

Trying to relax while waiting for his order to be filled, he consciously untensed his muscles and looked this way and that to distract himself for a bit.

Looking to his right, his gaze was arrested by a tiny little detail just a few centimeters above from where his hand rested close to the wall. The wallpaper was as gaudy as the rest, bright colours muted a little by the shadows from the lamp’s light that didn’t quite reach that far. Obviously, whoever had applied that wallpaper wasn’t good at the job, however, in a triangle space that had been left out from the wallpapering, carefully carved into the wood of a beam holding the wall together was one tiny, singular, little heart.

“Do you like it? It’s from the other owner! I thought it was neat, so I made sure not to tape the wallpaper over it!”

Forcibly drawing his eyes away from the tiny piece of evidence that Cora-san had been there, once upon a time, he came to look up to the boy waiter from before. The empty tray in the waiter’s hands made him aware that oh, the cappuccino had already been served to him. And he hadn’t noticed?

“What do you…?” a little speechless, he couldn’t properly formulate the question. But it wasn’t needed, as the black-haired waiter was, it seemed, perfectly capable of reading between the lines.

“The person who came before us? Cortez- Cortessssol- Curtesy?” Clutching the tray underneath his arm, he made a fist with one hand and hit the flat of his other hand with it, “Yup, Curtesy-san, he was a neat guy. Big, with a feather coat?” The waiter looked to his left, opening the view for Law as well towards the rest of the café, chattering on, “And he liked hearts – we found lots when we repainted the seats and the table! I think Sanji and Zoro held a competition to figure out who found the most… dunno who won, though.”

His throat grew tight with emotion. They’d… left them? The hearts, they’d left them there?

Needing to occupy his hands, he reached for the coffee. The sip he took opened up his throat some.

In the meantime, the waiter had turned back to him. At a loss for words, Law had no idea what to do, other than enjoy his coffee. And he didn’t know how to dismiss the guy now that he did not want company any longer. The smile that was thrown at him was a bit brighter than he figured he deserved, right then. In the end, he didn’t need to say anything.

“Just raise your hand if you need anything more. We’ve got great meat here, too, so check that out sometime! Enjoy your coffee!” and off he was, leaving Law to wonder at just what was powering the guy. Had to be at least ten energy drinks, if not more. And maybe five coffees thrown in for good measure. Who knew?

Without fail, his eyes sought out the little heart again, to reassure himself of its presence. Focus resting on it for an indeterminate amount of time, he thought to himself that yeah, he just might revisit this place again.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you had fun reading this fanfic! :)
> 
> If you're in the mood to and have time for it, I'd love a comment?
> 
> Thank you very much for reading!!! :D


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